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But Valve is right to focus on creating an ecosystem.

The concept of a 'console war' is quickly becoming archaic. What we're seeing now is more of a war for the living room, with devices ranging from our mobile phones to next-gen video game consoles, to the PC and beyond.

Combatants in this war aren't working on one single device, either. Each player is attempting to create a living room ecosystem of connectivity and monetization. So it's important to think of this as a war of cross-device platforms.

Likewise, the cast of characters is more diverse than ever before. It's not simply and and ---it's also nVidia, Samsung, , and any number of smaller players, like the Kickstarted Ouya, trying to get a foothold in the market. These players want you to fashion your entire entertainment ecosystem out of their products, from phones to set-top boxes, to tablets, to who knows what else.

Now Valve, the developer of Half-Life 2, Portal, and Left for Dead, and the company behind the wildly successful Steam platform, is entering this space, first with the advent of Big Picture Mode and now with SteamOS.

The question is: can a console-style PC make a dent in the ongoing war for couch domination?

I'm dubious, actually, though SteamOS appeals to me for other reasons.

First, however, it's important to note why the Linux-based operating system could be great.

Beyond Windows

For one thing, an operating system devoted almost solely to games is long overdue. It's not that I have any major problems with (some versions of) Windows. I run Windows 7 on two of my computers and it works just fine. In the past, operating system overhead could put undue burden on a machine, especially with anti-virus software running and all the junk a computer accumulates over time.

These days, however, I don't notice that. I built a modest gaming PC for myself. I run an Intel i5-2500 quad-core chip, 16 gigs of DDR3 RAM, and have Windows installed to a super-fast SSD, or solid-state, hard-drive. I have an nVidia 560 Ti GPU for graphics processing, and while that's not the newest card anymore it holds its own with pretty much every game I throw at it. The components are fast and quiet. The machine is a little over a year old and I haven't felt the need to upgrade.

In the past I might have upgraded a number of core components already at this point, but hardware is relatively inexpensive now for what you get, and the power between iterations of computer hardware doesn't grow quite as significantly as before---at least in terms of what gamers need to get by.

So the machine still hums along. I never feel the weight of Windows, and that itch I had once upon a time for an operating system better optimized for gaming is really not an issue anymore. It's a nice thought, but not really a necessary advance---at least for me.

On the other hand, from Valve's point of view, being unshackled from Windows makes tons of sense. Valve boss called Windows 8 a "catastrophe" not so long ago. They won't have to contend with Microsoft's attempts at monetizing Windows apps, and gamers will be potentially more plugged in to the Steam store than ever before.

“The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior,” Newell said last year at Seattle’s Casual Connect, according to AllThingsD.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.”

And so Valve develops SteamOS, bringing the games to Linux---or at least attempting to start that process. And there's no doubt that a better suite of choices also benefits consumers.

Perhaps what I like best about the idea of SteamOS, however, is the knowledge that I can build a PC in the future without paying for an operating system. Sure, I could do that with any Linux build, but SteamOS goes a step further by allowing (hopefully) easy game streaming between Windows and Mac based machines, meaning my new SteamOS build could run my Windows catalog.

Two Towers?

The problem, of course, is that without a second PC running a second operating system, this does me little good. If I were to run SteamOS by its lonesome, I would still have very few games to play on it; Windows is still the dominant platform for PC gaming, and that will be an exceptionally hard fact to change. This is largely due to the install base, which makes Windows the natural platform to develop on. How many developers will decide to develop for PC and Linux simply thanks to SteamOS and a possible SteamBox? That depends entirely on the install base, and while millions of gamers use Steam on PC, how many of those will adopt SteamOS?

Likewise, how many people are truly interested in a second PC attached to their television set?

Consoles may not be as powerful or customizable as a PC, but they offer other advantages: simplicity, convenience, price, and friends, just to name a few. For $400 you can buy the upcoming PlayStation 4, plug it in to your HDTV, and start playing instantly. You can easily set up two controllers to play split-screen, and you'll likely have some list of friends established from the PS3 days to play online with. Before the PS4 and Xbox One hit shelves, you'd need a PC to play 1080P games on your TV. That won't be the case anymore.

In theory, SteamOS will offer something similar for couch gamers. Controller support, Big Picture Mode which makes the interface gamepad and TV accessible, and things like family sharing, friends, and so forth.

In practice, SteamOS appeals more to the hardcore PC gamer segment who see it as a way to get away from Windows, build cheaper PCs, and have theoretically more game-optimized systems. In practice, a good gaming PC is still going to cost more than a console, and a console-style PC won't have any inherent advantages over a dedicated gaming PC. Nor will it have any true exclusives like we see in console gaming. The same games you can play on SteamOS will be available on your PC running Steam. Probably.

Another really big advantage of PC gaming over console gaming is the fact that your PC doubles as a workstation. You can easily browse the internet, write up documents, print things, and do all the other not-as-fun-as-gaming tasks many people do. And then you can load up a game and play for a while. A Steam Box running SteamOS would have largely similar functionality, but very few people actually do productivity tasks from the couch, on their TV, and I doubt this will change that. Running SteamOS on your regular PC would be another story, of course, but Valve is focusing on the living room with this, and so shall we.

And in the living room, the incentives are still largely missing for both the core PC gaming audience and non-PC gamers. Console gamers will almost certainly prefer to stick with more traditional consoles; PC gamers may begin adopting SteamOS, but how many will do so in the living room as Valve intends?

The core PC gamer demographic isn't really Valve's target audience here, of course. Console gamers are. But the things that draw console gamers to consoles will be hard to replicate in a SteamOS computer, whether or not it's attached to a TV. Games are the driving force here, and consoles live and die by offering exclusive games. I'm not sure SteamOS will have any exclusives, since in many ways Valve would be shooting itself in the foot by releasing any of its titles exclusively to their own Operating System, effectively abandoning the PC most people game on in the process.

The Long, Long View

Valve has more tricks up its sleeve, of course. Two more announcements are on the way this week. And Valve is a very savvy, nimble organization. Those announcements could include hardware beyond a SteamBox, including a new controller, wearable computing, or 3D goggles.

And maybe Valve doesn't need to win or even really compete with the big three in the living room wars to be successful. Maybe SteamOS will be the first shot fired against the behemoth that is Windows when it comes to regular, old-fashioned PC gaming.

I go back and forth on this, I admit. For someone like me, a SteamBox and SteamOS sounds really appealing; but I'm not your typical consumer. I own and play games on just about every modern system available, largely because doing so is a big part of my job. A typical consumer doesn't have more than one console or more than one gaming PC or more than one handheld gaming system. Or, if they do, they acquire these over time.

And while future PC gamers may migrate to SteamOS, a typical console gamer will likely pick their console of choice and stick with it. Time will tell.

It's also possible that Valve is taking the long, long view with SteamOS.

If, as many predict, consoles are in their last generation, it may be the right time to plant this kind of seed. Certainly Valve is right to think of Steam as more than just a gaming distribution service, but rather an ecosystem unto itself. I wouldn't be surprised to see a future version of nVidia's Shield handheld device adopt SteamOS instead of Android, for instance; and it's possible that Steam as a platform will spread into other technologies as well.

But the long, long view is risky and shrouded in the fog of unpredictability. Technology changes rapidly, and hedging against unpredictable eventualities is hard, even if it is necessary.

Either way, I think more competition is good, more consumer choice is good, and I trust that Valve will bring its signature quality to the table in whatever the company does. And maybe I'm wrong about the exclusives as well. Maybe Valve will play hard ball and release one of its AAA titles exclusively on SteamOS somehow. That could change the equation here. By how much, I can't really say.